ASUS GeForce GTX 560 TOP Direct CU II is a close to perfect implementation of NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 560 non-Ti. The card comes with increased clock speeds out of the box which results in the same performance as the GTX 560 Ti. ASUS' thermal solution manages to impress too. It is whisper quiet, has tons of OC potential and temperatures under load are around 70°C.

Ho-hum and we didn't see this coming...
When a nice XFX 6950 1Gb has been $210 -AR for sometime now ~10% in FpS @1920x, while doing it with 40% less power that's not "tiny". Then when a nice Cyclone 6870 is like $167 -AR this is squeezed hard!

When they can't find anything nice to say they all fall-back on that overused and today misinformation; "on the other hand NVIDIA's drivers seem more mature and refined". Nice to see nothing touting PhysX.

Could find its place along side all the last iteration of Über Overclocks, (which is basically all it really is anyway) as long as they keep the price more in line with those out-going GTX 460 1Gb that were already heavily burdened for just Cherry-picked silicon.

I don't get it. The performance and price between the 560 and the Ti are so absurdly close why even bother with a new sku when they're using all the same parts. Just drop the the Ti price and be done with it. Only makes sense if they have an ass-load of defective GF114 cores.

Exactly, it's the normal trend for either side, though AMD/ATI will more often release a chip(s) on new processes and almost always release them in “XT and Pro” to start. Nvidia not so much, but they'll still have such chips in the bin waiting. Normally the less they wait releasing those de-content chips the more you kind of have to wonder how "off" the manufacturing process had been on the initial wafers. Although, that’s not totally true, as any wafer will provide a certain number lesser chips that they’ll de-content. It's when the process is really poor is when you see geldings and sometime those very much inundate the market, but can have there place when the price is right.

So, I was looking at this data and pricing on these Asus DirectCU 560 unit's, right now on Egg the standard clock is $200, the OC'd 925Mhz version $220 (no-rebates) shipping $5, basically as stated by the review.

Now from the generic FpS numbers from this review, and W1zzards DirectCU 6850 FpS review we can extrapolate ~10% bump for the standard clock; ~20% for the OC'd version.

Now for power the DirectCU 6850 OC only forfeits a 3% performance to watts penalty; although when looking at the GTX560 at 925Mhz it requires ~38% more power for only 20% FpS improvement!

Now the point I wanted to make… the Asus DirectCU 6850 has now twice been offered at Egg for $140 –AR$20 wF/S and you get a free Shogun Title! That’s make this Asus DirectCU 57% more in cost, for 20% more FpS, with a 38% penalty in power. Then consider W1zzard OC'n numbers this 560 gave up another 5%, although the DirectCU 6850 went a good 20% core/ 17% memory.